🧵Here it is, my big #EastEnders catch-up thread for people who only see it when they go home for Christmas with the family. Allow me to get you all caught up on the goings-on in Albert Square in its most explosive week of the year! And this year is a DOOZY! Sorry btw, last year’s thread was 24 posts long. This one is about 90. There’s a LOT HAPPENING.

People stop him in the street to cry and tell him he’s wonderful and fighting the good fight and also that he’s super handsome and his album is brilliant and such good music and that he should be James Bond. Laurence Fox saw Armageddon 2 when he was on holiday in America in the summer.

If you're clutching your pearls over Sam Smith doing nothing more risque than the same stuff that already had squares clutching pearls since forever...Elvis, Madonna, Freddie Mercury, Bowie, Christina Aguilera, Miley Cyrus, Lil Nas X and more already offended you and your ilk. "Think of the children!" "Ban this filth!" "They're sick in the head!"

We've heard ALL of this before, you're just looking for things to be offended by and Sam Smith is your current flavour. In a year it'll be some other singer you're repulsed by for aaaalll the same shit.

🧵THE WORST FASHIONS OF THE Y2K ERA

BRAS WITH CLEAR STRAPS: Whoa it looks like you aren’t even WEARING a bra! Ultimate goal when wearing strappy tops (ONE SET OF STRAPS ONLY AT ALL TIMES IN Y2K) Invisible straps don’t catch the light like a MIRROR at all PS enjoy your sweat rash POINTY-HEM TOPS: I GUESS they’re meant to look like bandanas (?) but I don’t know…why. And…if they’re made of hot pink lycra with faux snakeskin panels…also why PS I miss my Tammy Girl hot pink lycra pointy-hem snakeskin-panel top so much.

14 years to the day since I was working on Oliver! in the West End and M1chael J@cks0n came to see it, had a backstage tour (was not interested in meeting me which will SHOCK you) and then held up the start of the show by 20 minutes coz he wouldn't stop getting up and waving. After the show the streets were so rammed with people trying to catch a glimpse of the withered King of Pop two months before he died that I got stuck for nearly an hour in the middle of them in the van I used to get to the theatre (with dogs in the back, I was the dog handler).

100k! 100k people here because of and despite my EastEnders updates, Sonic shitposting, Olympics live-tweeting, dressage commentary and EXTREMELY sensible socialism. WELCOME! And @redneuke was the 100,000th follower! Congrats! You win: a tweet!

People who say "there wasn't all this debate about trans people five years ago" are SO CLOSE to understanding what "moral panic" means. SO SO close! Trans women have been allowed to compete in women's events in the Olympics since the early 2000s (and trans men in men's events) and yet...it's only...been made an issue in....recent years HMMMMMMMMMMMMM can't be anything nefarious about THAT hmmmmmmmMMMMMMMM.

There's been a significant increase in the coolest people on the web saying I look like a scrawny crackhead, "eat a sandwich!", emaciated etc etc lately and, firstly, RUDE, but also...it isn't true. I'm slim-curvy, that's my body type. These trolls just don't try hard enough. PS I'm not a victim particularly, I have a natural body type that society accepts and I did absolutely fuck all to earn it, it's just the lazy inaccuracy of their insults that is depressing. It's up there with their continued use of "crazy eyes" to describe my FANTASTIC eyes.

THREAD: Here it is, the big #EastEnders catch-up thread for people who only see it when they go home for Christmas with the family. Allow me to get you all caught up on the goings-on in Albert Square in its most explosive week of the year! To kick things off…Phil, Kat and Alfie. Ok. So. Alfie and Kat were married, right? They’ve been married, split up, got back together, cheated, not seen each other for years, got back together about a thousand times. They’re meant to be together.

In 2012 I hosted a quiz night corporate which involved writing the quiz. I had a question that referred to "this year's World Cup final" and a man instantly roared angrily "WHICH WORLD CUP?" and because he was such a fanny about it I refused to explain which World Cup. When I lived in Clapham our local pub quiz host had a good way of stopping people cheating: between rounds he went round each table and asked if anyone needed a clue. It was fun and nobody used phones. Angry Man HATED me doing this and refused to let his table ask for clues.

I like how at the end of A Christmas Carol we see that Scrooge is still a bit of a prick coz before he reveals to Bob Cratchit that he's raising his salary he does a big "I'm bollocking you, you cunt" fake-out. No ghost can stop Ebeneezer being a total banter merchant. Goes round to the Cratchits for Christmas dinner and is a good laugh and really looks like a changed man until he has two glasses of Mrs C's Gallo Family merlot and starts banging on about Lexit.

THREAD: Some cool stuff people tweet about me coz I don't hate trans women.

Apparently I'm on some "dangerous antifa account list" that....exists. Have locked my account for the first time ever, quite exciting, like hiding in a basement during a storm and eating choc ices out of the freezer in the corner. Had to Google "how to lock twitter account" coz I had no idea.

THREAD: The Tory leadership candidates as 90s British cars.

JEREMY HUNT: Ford Mondeo. Zero edge no matter how slick the design is. There was talk that they listed to the left but they want everyone to know they’ve DEFINITELY fixed that now. SAJID JAVID: Rover 100. A brand you can trust? A modern Mini? One of us? A safe pair of hands? Deeply uncool, woefully unreliable and horribly uncomfortable even in top spec.

It's a shame the #Wimbledon final is tainted by arseholery coz WHAT a match-up.

This and the @Lionesses is giving me just enough summer of sport to get me stressed in a fun way. Thank you, sport. It's quite funny that Kyrgios is riled in the #Wimbledon final coz a hammered British woman is yelling Britishly from the crowd and while it's going on and he's grumbling away he serves two RIDICULOUS aces.

Loads and loads of people died because this government opened too early and locked down too late time and time again. They created an atmosphere where people were cool with 1000+ people dying of COVID a week. I guess that's just how it is now. It'll be back late this year, death rates will suddenly spike again and anyone who dares say "this is bad and avoidable" will be called...I dunno, anti-British or something. What a crapshow.

"The Queen will still be doing LIGHT DUTIES and SHE HAS MILD SYMPTOMS!!!"

She's 95, I don't reckon she's scaling back from bungee jumping while she has a runny nose. What duties was she doing before this? "Alright lads, I won't be able to help you with the guttering for a couple of days coz I've got bloody COVID. No, no, still working obvs, but just gonna do hoovering and a few emails" - the Queen

Top 10 Holiday Specials:

10. X Factor Final 2009: An opera quartet (actually musical theatre, all met at drama school) vs a builder with a semi-reliable top Bb (who has worked consistently as a singer)! Builder won with a haunting acoustic cover of Welcome to the Jungle. 9. Top Gear Xmas Special 2012: Jeremy puts a Santa hat on a Muslim man in the studio audience before giving a look to camera that makes sick speed through my thorax and gush forth on to the couch and everything I'm wearing.

THREAD: This thread is for people who will be at their family home for Christmas and therefore watching #EastEnders for the only time in 2021. Allow me to get you all caught up on the goings-on in Albert Square in its most explosive week of the year! We’ll start with Chelsea and Denise’s wedding storylines! Denise is the wayward Chelsea’s mother and they’re both marrying their fellas on the same day: Christmas Day! That’s nice isn’t it.

THREAD: Today marks 30 years since we lost #FreddieMercury. Here (in thread-form) is a piece I wrote on him for @StandardIssueUK in 2016. I don’t know when I became a Queen fan but in 1989 I sang Killer Queen for anybody who would listen (I was 4 so literally everybody listened). A song about a high-class escort wouldn’t be anybody’s first choice for a kid to sing but I really knocked that shit out of the park.

Oh my goodness we're just a couple of weeks away from the start of my favourite bit of Christmas: reading articles about winter wonderlands that are fucking shit. "It's been hard enough for kids this year and they were really looking forward to this but it turned out to just be a burger van in a car park and bloke in a Santa costume off of Amazon. Kids are still crying I am disgusted"